Dear Reader,

What an exciting time to be in allied health! More and more health agencies are recognizing the importance of allied health professionals, while businesses are exploring the huge potential for marketing to and recruiting talented entrants to these exciting careers.

The Health Professions Network continues to be on the cutting edge of these momentous changes. We must continue to evolve and grow in order to meet new challenges head-on. While the HPN leadership is making plans to formalize its structure, we remains committed to maintaining the all-inclusive collaboration of allied health voices that is so unique to our organization.

Please join us as we welcome this exciting chapter in the history of allied health!

Best regards,
HPN Board of Directors, formerly the HPN Coordinating Team

Contents

1. Spring HPN meeting in Atlanta, Georgia a huge success
2. HPN grows as it begins its second decade (HODES plan)
3. Quality speakers give top-notch presentations
4. Teams refocus as HPN restructures
5. HPN continues to link to federal agencies, including CDC, DOL
6. Join us in Phoenix, September 28-30
7. Welcome to new HPN staffperson, Mike Nelson

1. Spring HPN meeting in Atlanta, Georgia a huge success

The well-publicized nursing shortage "pales in comparison to similarly driven shortfalls in other health professional groups," writes Edward O'Neil of the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco.

"[A]s important as shortages in pharmacy, medicine, and even dentistry might become, they will . . . fail to reach the depths of the looming crisis in the allied health professions."

Helping raise awareness of allied health among policymakers and the public and urging increased federal funding for allied health education is the goal of the Health Professions Network (HPN). During its spring meeting, March 16-19 in Atlanta, hosted by the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, the HPN focused on presentation and discussion of various key allied health topics.

Presenters to the 60 representatives in attendance included representatives from the

2. HPN grows as it begins its second decade

At its March meeting in Atlanta, the HPN met with representatives of the Bernard Hodes Group to discuss a large scale media campaign to promote and market the health professions to a national audience. To enable it to pursue funding from public or private sources, meeting attendees agreed that the HPN should become an incorporated entity. Stay tuned for more on this major change in the direction of HPN.

3. Quality speakers give top-notch presentations

The HPN continued its long-standing tradition of high-quality speakers on a wide variety of key allied health topics, including:

• Frontline Health and the Health Care Workforce
• Supporting and Expanding Public Health Research: A CDC Perspective
• Cultural Competency in Allied Health
• Accessibility, Quality and Efficiency of the Health Care System
• Human Capital in Health Care
• Workforce Investment Boards
• The Role of Health Workforce in Hurricane Katrina

Speakers' presentations are now available via the HPN Web site.

4. Teams refocus as HPN restructures

In light of plans by the HPN to become incorporated (see article 2), a few of the HPN teams have restructured. The Outreach Team has become the Membership Team, and the Development Team is now the Program Team. The Coordinating Team is now the Board of Directors.

5. HPN continues to link to federal agencies, including CDC, DOL

The HPN Advocacy Team continues to collaborate with federal agencies, most recently focusing on the US Department of Labor (DOL) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by engaging speakers for the Spring HPN Meeting. Talks with the DOL continue and have led to several future planned actions, including a Web broadcast on the One Stop Shop Web site to inform investment boards about allied health professions. Also, HPN will explore linking its Web site and “professions of the month” to the DOL careers Web site.

The HPN Advocacy Team has made initial contact through the DOL with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to talk about allied health classifications under the Standard Occupational Classifications system. This initial contact will be followed up. Look for more information on this important project coming soon through HPN!

6. Join us in Phoenix, September 28-30

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming Fall Meeting of the Health Professions Network to be held in Phoenix, AZ, September 28-30, and hosted by the Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Program Team is working to identify speakers on several topics, including membership and recruitment issues as well as health care access, quality/safety, performance measurements, and cultural competence. Other ideas include emergency preparedness and the impact of pandemics on the health professions.

Please join us for what promises to be another fabulous, fun and informative meeting of the Health Professions Network.

Also, mark your calendar for the HPN Spring 2007 meeting, April 27-29 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The fall 2007 meeting is tentatively planned for Anaheim, California.

7. Welcome to new HPN staffperson, Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson is now the key contact person for the HPN and an employee of the Society for Nuclear Medicine, the HPN’s host organization.

A certified association executive (CAE) and member of the American Society of Association Executives, Mike has served as Chief Operating Officer, Homesource Real Estate Asset Services and Chief Financial Officer, National Building Museum.

He was also Executive Director and CEO of the Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States, and Vice President for Administration for the Florida Audubon Society.

Mike holds two BS degrees, in management and marketing, from the University of West Florida.

Please feel free to contact Mike with any questions on HPN at mnelson@snm.org.